


John's Midinight Sonata

by all4athena



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-10
Updated: 2013-02-10
Packaged: 2017-11-28 20:55:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 953
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/678801
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/all4athena/pseuds/all4athena
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John's picked up some old habits of Sherlock's, much to the man's surprise.</p>
            </blockquote>





	John's Midinight Sonata

Morning. It was definitely morning, but not so much morning that the sun crested over the horizon of London. Sherlock rose out of bed and looked at his phone, the bright light from it blinding him for a fraction of a second before he checked the time. ‘Three AM,’ he thought to himself as his ears pricked at a familiar tune… yes, he was certain of it - that was indeed Grieg’s /Aase’s Death/ playing from what seemed to be the other room. Dawning his blue robe, the detective sleepily padded his way downstairs to the sitting room; he stopped in his tracks when he saw John playing his violin by the open window. The moonlight softly shone in and illuminated the blonde, accenting bits of his hair and the horse fibres on the bow, making them glisten. John had said very few words since Sherlock had come back from the dead about a month ago, choosing to instead to completely ignore the younger man unless he absolutely had to do otherwise.

“I didn’t know you could play,” Sherlock said in a calm, soothing voice, still standing across the room from where John stood.

John flinched, but said or did nothing else. He continued to play, his eyes drifting closed as his fingers continued to press the frets, conveying the sorrow and pain he felt through his largo rendition of Aase’s Death. As far as John was concerned, Sherlock was still dead, nothing more than an intelligent apparition that responded to his presence.

“That’s a very peculiar song, John. Aase’s Death, yeah? It’s a very unpopular song due to it’s depressing tune. Where did you hear it?” Sherlock asked, beginning to cross the gap between him and his doctor.

John still ignored Sherlock, choosing to repeat the song once more. The tune had come to him in a dream of sorts; he had heard a fragment of it on the radio and had instantly recognized it as something he had adored for ages, despite never consciously hearing it before. He phoned into the radio station as soon as the song was done, got the name of it, and instantly purchased an mp3 of it on his iPhone. However, listening to the song wasn’t enough; it was still missing that satisfying quirk that only an in-person rendition could bring.

Upon returning home, John had noticed that Sherlock left his violin behind. He walked over to it, picked it up, and delicately strummed the bow against the violin’s strings. It produced a god-awful noise, but the doctor realized that this is what was missing from the completeness of Aase’s death. It hurt at first, learning to play the violin; John had developed blisters within the first few days of teaching himself some simple chords. After time (and countless hours of practice), the doctor had developed the right calluses needed to play the violin as flawlessly as he needed to. He had invested in the sheet music to Aase’s Death, not being able to find it anywhere in the flat (for some odd reason; Sherlock painstakingly kept and organized all of his sheet music), and learned how to play it from memory. Oftentimes when he couldn’t sleep, John would grab Sherlock’s old violin and play this familiar tune until he was calm enough to return to a peaceful slumber. He still did it often to this day, although this was the first time that the detective had noticed (which was odd enough in itself).

The detective stopped about a foot from where John stood. The doctor was still facing the window, looking out at the world, trying to conceal himself from within. “It’s peculiar that you would pick up on /that/ song, as I’ve only played it when you were in the throws of your night terrors. I would have hypothesized that, given the negative situation that you associated it with, you would have made it a negative connotation. Then again, the tune never ceased to lull you back into a peaceful slumber.”

John said nothing, but his breathing became more nasally. His breath hitched as an attempt to stop himself from crying and to alleviate the knot in his throat; it didn’t work. The doctor’s tears sparkled and glistened like gems as the moonlight hit them just so; they rolled down his cheeks and hit the violin that was still neatly tucked under his chin.

Not knowing what else to do, Sherlock reached out, wrapped his arms around John’s midsection, and pulled him into a protective hug. “You have suffered enough and warred with yourself, Captain Watson. It’s time that you’ve won,” he whispered into the doctor’s ear before trailing slow, tender kisses down the doctor’s jawline and neck.

It was then, and only then, when John spoke up. “I… I learned in your… your absence,” he said, placing the violin and bow on the windowsill. His arms fell to his sides and over Sherlock’s embrace; not finding that to be comfortable, he soon found himself laying his appendages over the slender form of the younger man’s. “It.. it was the only thing that let me sleep at times. It stirred something inside of me… I don’t know what it is.. but it beat and kept time with the music until it expired from wear.”

Sherlock hummed softly and weaved his fingers with John’s. In the stillness of the night, he began to sway with John from side-to-side, much as a mother would with her nervous child. The armour that John had collected and constructed over the past three years melted away, if only for the night, as he and the one he loved most shared what was to become the first of many soul-entwining moments.


End file.
